The term “oil crisis” usually means a spike in the price of oil, but as oil-producing nations reliant on this revenue, an oil crisis for us comes with a fall in the price of oil.

This decline in oil prices which we see today is alarming, and the speed of this decline has come as a surprise to everyone, including the most pessimistic. Who could’ve imagined that the price of a barrel of oil would go back down to $50 after it had reached almost $150 just a short time ago? And this must convince us that the impossible can happen; that it is not impossible that we could sell the barrel for only 20 dollars. Despite such a catastrophic prospect we should not panic, for perhaps it is a blessing in disguise.

Its shocking that our hopes for a decade of prosperity is now in jeopardy, which is something that many fear, yet if we have learnt anything from our modern history we know this is not true. Hopefully, we’ve learned something from the first oil crisis of 1980s, which is not to hold our collective breaths waiting for the price of oil to go back up, since it took twenty years the last time around for it to rebound.